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The logic was clear, Schumer said: “He runs, we win; if he doesn’t run, we lose.” So he gave in, he says, to extensive demands from the Nebraskan, and Nelson cruised to what turned out to be an easy reelection.

Schumer’s bond with the Senate moderates he helped elect and reelect in 2006 and 2008 has powered his remarkable ascent within the chamber. Two years ago, Schumer seemed in danger of being overshadowed by his state’s junior senator, Hillary Clinton, or elbowed aside in the Senate leadership by Obama mentor Dick Durbin.

Beyond Majority Leader Harry Reid, the architect of the Democrats' successful health care strategy, Schumer has emerged as the dominant political force and go-to negotiator on Reid's leadership team. And the Senate is on the verge of passing landmark legislation that's deeply controversial in states such as Nelson's, a lesson Schumer said was drummed into him by the people he met that weekend in Omaha.

The apparent political victory has further enhanced Schumer’s stature. The jokes about the most dangerous place in Washington being between him and a camera have gone stale, replaced by a widespread recognition that he has evolved into one of the essential players on the American political landscape and, quite likely, a future majority leader.

The hunting story became legend in the Senate last month after Nelson passed photographs of the orange-clad, gun-toting Harvard grad, dead bird in hand, around an amused caucus lunch. But it also belongs in the broader legend of Schumer, the political animal par excellence.

“Chuck always wants to know where the other guy is coming from,” said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), a former Schumer staffer, who added that he wasn’t surprised that Schumer acquitted himself well.

“He has handled more guns at crime bill press conferences than most hunters,” he said.

Indeed, word of Schumer’s hunting exploits was greeted with astonishment on both sides of the simmering gun control wars, in which Schumer came of age as a central player. His work on the Brady Bill’s handgun restriction turned him into, literally, a National Rifle Association poster child. The NRA’s favorite image pictures Schumer grinning under bright blue earmuffs as he demonstrates the deadliness of a stubby assault weapon.

“He just must have needed Nelson's vote very badly to do that,” said Tom King, the president of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, who called Schumer “patently anti-gun.”

Schumer says, however, that he favors only common sense and regionally varied restrictions on guns, and he has long bragged of winning, at summer camp, an NRA sharpshooting prize with a .22 rifle.

It is a shame Senator Schumer so cavalierly takes the life of innocent animals. Real men don't kill animals. Killing animals, whether at the factory farm where animals are crammed together in wretched conditions or gunning wildlife down with a high-powered rifle, is inhumane, cruel, and unnecessary.

lovely... the constitution continues to be ignored by whores on both sides of the aisle. our government's main purpose is to protect the rights of the american people. no matter what the anti american clowns in government say, health care is not a right it is a good and nowhere in the constitution does it give these looters the authority to pull off this heinous bill. if your representative can be bought he is NOT working for you no matter what side of the aisle he parks himself on.

for every american who has been too apathetic and allowed these people to stay in office by reelecting them i hope you get what you've got coming to you in spades via cactus, you deserve it and no it won't be a better deal in health care, far from it. you are helping tyranny to grow in a once free country, you should be ashamed. go ahead and disagree with what i have said, it only proves you have no real sense of what is going on. this is a perfect example of why we were given a republic instead of a democracy. democracies never last and always end in tyranny.

it is unfortunate the rest of us have to be harmed by your lack of respect for our constitutional republic. welcome to fascism where government in bed with corporations reigns. this is bush on steroids. wake up to the fact we are no longer represented by either party and certainly not the president. blame yourselves for allowing this to happen. while you are busy fighting over which party is better both parties are working to screw us over.

for those of you who still believe we are given anything more than the illusion we are choosing a president when we vote, realize the choice has already been made by those really in charge, stop being so naive. educate yourselves on the federal reserve, world banks and the CFR. if you love this country you will pay more attention and help save it from those who wish to take away our liberties and everything this nation was founded on.

Do you think Schumer took those pheasants home and had them for dinner? Or, maybe donate them to a homeless shelter?

Schumer is a city boy. I doubt if he knows the difference between a pheasant and a seagull. I doubt if he would eat a wild bird. He only eats pheasant when they are corn fed, farm raised pheasants prepared by a five star chef at a five star restaurant. And, then he probably calls the meal a business expense and charges it off to the taxpayer.

Most likely, he threw the birds in the trash and then went to the new 'Jockey Club' for a night of drinking and bragging about the intoxicating experience of 'the hunt'.